The eagerly awaited TIGER grants were announced last week. An experiment in government. Against their better judgment members of the House and Senate gave $1.5 billion to the Administration and left it to the discretion of USDOT program managers, modal administrators, the Secretary (and perhaps the White House, just in case) to decide what projects were worthy. (Egads! The bureaucrats!)

The multimodal discretionary grants program—later assigned a name and acronym at USDOT—was created a year ago in the cauldron in which Congress cooked up the economic recovery package. The context was job creation in a failing economy. But the genius of TIGER’s tenacious sponsors—most visibly Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA)—was that it also was a good time to try something different. Politics would always be lurking in the background (if not in the foreground) when doling out tax revenue for public works but this was not a time for the earmarking norm.

Also lurking was the thought: if this works it could set the example for a change in transportation policy.

So far the respondents (scroll thru the page) generally agree there is benefit in the approach. What’s not to like? Livable community folks liked the selection of street car and pedestrian path projects. Goods movement was given a strong boost with around $300 million going to rail projects. And it was good to see that at least one of the promising marine highway initiatives was granted $30 million. (The first of many one hopes.) That award illustrates how TIGER–and Secretary Ray LaHood–was open to more than the usual road, transit and bike path projects.

By and large, very good projects were selected. But the question posed by Caruso is whether TIGER represents a policy approach worth continuing.

Some of the respondents think TIGER is a good starting point but that it is important to change the underlying policy. In particular Steve Heminger notes it is not enough to create a grants program that is mode neutral. An improved Federal policy and program should have a clearer, focused national perspective e.g., goods movement and metropolitan mobility. It is a view I share.

Bob Poole raises an important policy question worth debating by suggesting an underlying weakness of a multimodal approach if a highway tax is the sole source of support.

One person’s response I would be interested to see is that of Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA). In January 2009 the chair of EPW, which is to produce highway and other portions of the next authorization bill, flatly opposed the multimodal discretionary grants provision in the draft Senate stimulus bill, even as Heminger and other Californians welcomed the idea of a mode-neutral program and projects judged on their merits. Boxer and others in the transportation leadership of Capitol Hill will decide whether the TIGER approach is just a brief detour from projects as usual. Pbea

DOT Secretary Ray LaHood was in Oakland on July 2nd talking freight and ports. He was importuned by local, State and Federal office holders about the need for a national goods movement policy. He was told that infrastructure improvements strengthen the capacity of ports to serve the nation. He heard them say there’s a need for equity among West Coast ports. He volunteered that a California “ports czar” might be what’s needed. (Although that may not be what the folks in Oakland have in mind.)

He also reiterated his view that marine highway development should be realized and would be “transformational.” His tweet from Oakland: “US ports provide transportation for the 21st century.”

The key to creating more environmentally friendly ports, LaHood said, is to transport more goods by ship rather than trucks. He mentioned, in particular, the importance of a “marine highway” along the West Coast. “We will be putting a good deal of emphasis on the marine highway in order for us to get trucks off the road and get cleaner air,” LaHood said. (Source: Chris Metinko, Oakland Tribune)